true sense and interpretation of the acts of its own Pontiffs and Councils.
Under the same head, therefore, and under the same censure, come all appeals from the Divine authority of the Church at this hour, under whatsoever pretext or to whatsoever tribunal; whether to Councils in the future or the past, or to Scripture or the Fathers, or to unauthentic interpretations of the acts of Councils, or to documents of human history.
This being so, it cannot be said that there exist grave difficulties from the words and acts of the Fathers, from the genuine documents of history, and from the Catholic doctrine itself, which if not solved, would render it impossible to propose to the faithful, as a doctrine, the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff; because it was contained, before definition, in the universal and constant teaching of the Church as a truth of revelation. Who is the competent judge to declare whether such difficulties really exist? or, if they exist, what is the value of them; whether they be grave or light, relevant or irrelevant? Surely, it belongs to the Church to judge of these things. They are so inseparably in contact with dogma, that the deposit of faith cannot be guarded or expounded without judging of them and pronouncing on them. And it is passing strange if the Church should be incompetent to judge of these things, and the scientific historians alone competent; that is, if the Church should be fallible in dogmatic facts, and the scientific historians infallible. What is this but Lutheranism in history? In those that are without, this is con-
